1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an accommodating apparatus for temporarily accommodating a glass substrate for use with a semiconductor wafer, a liquid crystal display (LCD), or the like before or after a process by an exposing device. The present invention also relates to a substrate processing system having such an accommodating apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a step for forming a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) array for an LCD, a sequence of a thin film forming pre-cleaning step, a thin film forming step, a resist coating step, an exposing step, a developing step, an etching step, and a resist peeling-off step is repeated the number of times corresponding to the number of layers formed on one glass substrate (for example, the sequence is repeated six times).
In the resist coating step, the exposing step, and the developing step, a structure of which for example a coating/developing device and an exposing device are connected is used. An arm type conveying device, an AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle), or the like conveys a glass substrate from an upstream device to the coating/exposing/developing device.
However, the process performance of the coating/exposing/developing device is higher than that of other devices. In other words, the process time of the coating/exposing/developing device is shorter than that of the other devices. Thus, when such a sequence of steps is repeated six times, even if devices corresponding to the number of layers are disposed (namely, six devices are disposed), one coating/exposing/developing device can sufficiently process glass substrates.
In an exposing device, however, a reticle should be replaced for each layer. However, in such a sheet processing system, after a substrate with a first layer is loaded from the down-stream device to the coating/exposing/developing device, a substrate with a second layer may be loaded to the coating/exposing/developing device. Thereafter, a substrate with a fifth layer may be loaded. In other words, since glass substrates with different layers are loaded at random, when glass substrates are processed by the exposing device in the order of which they have been loaded, reticles should be frequently replaced. Thus, the process time of the exposing process becomes long.